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Pasco Agrees To Buy Aloha Utilities

By Carl Orth | The Suncoast News

Published: October 7, 2008

DADE CITY - The Pasco County Commission voted today to pay $90.5 million to buy the privately owned Aloha Utilities.

The deal could close by Dec. 17, Pasco officials said. The purchase would be transacted through the Florida Governmental Utility Authority.

Aloha serves about 25,000 customers in the Seven Springs-Trinity area of southwestern Pasco.
The board of the Longwood-based authority will consider the Aloha purchase deal tomorrow. The Florida Governmental Utility Authority is a consortium of counties from around the state
Aloha officials were not immediately available for comment.

"I think Christmas is going to come early for all you folks," Commissioner Ann Hildebrand said of the Aloha purchase. "This has been a passion of mine to see private utilities come under public ownership."

For more than a decade, Hildebrand has referred complaints regarding private utilities to the Florida Public Service Commission because the county has no jurisdiction over them.

"It's just a basic right to have good, quality water," Commissioner Jack Mariano said.

Members of the Committee for Better Water Now, a group of disgruntled Aloha Utilities customers, visited him about half an hour after he was first installed as commissioner, Mariano jokingly noted.

Even though rates will significantly increase to help pay for the buyout, Aloha customers testified they supported the deal.

Wayne Forehand and other customers were concerned they would have to pay higher rates and still not have a guarantee of better quality drinking water if the county did not buy Aloha Utilities.

The buyout plan would gradually shut off Aloha's two problem wells within two years, commissioners were told. Wells 8 and 9 had the highest concentrations of hydrogen sulfide. The molecule, which has a "rotten egg" smell, has been blamed for the "black water" many Aloha customers have complained about for years.

"They haven't improved and they're not going to improve," Forehand said about Aloha executives. "They're greedy and they want to make money."

Carl Orth can be reached at 727-815-1068 or corth@suncoastnews.com.

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